Anybody interested in pseudo-code for creating?
Give me two-three weeks (other projects midstream) I'll write some;
this could be fun.
Thanks for the link.
Tory
ps re note below- give it time.
I note my challenge on the two VSI books (Math, Wittgenstein) was
ignored. -Owen
On Jul 13, 2009, at 9:49 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:
Nick,
I like you. I really do. But you sometimes make me just want to
scream.
If you want to know what pseudocode is, go to the web and find out!
Here's a starting point for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudocode
Then, if you still *really* want to know what psuedocode is, write
some. And then pick a language and turn it into actual code. Then
you will know what psuedocode is.
--Doug
On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 9:28 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]
> wrote:
What is the relationship between pseudo-code and code.
Are actual codes "realizations" of pseudocodes?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Smith
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 7/13/2009 9:16:11 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Philosophy, Mathematics, and Science
Can be built upon in theory, but in practice they are with high
probability thrown away and rebuilt from scratch.
Because they are complex linguistic objects which, like
philosophers' arguments, are often harder to figure out than to do
over from first principles.
-- rec --
Well said Roger. I think we have all had the experience of
choosing to:
rederive an equation
redesign an algorithm
rewrite a piece of code
rehash a philosophical argument
when there was already a perfectly good (maybe) equation/algorithm/
program/argument layed at our feet.
For me, this is a mixture of:
Pride
Trust
Understanding
This was a major challenge to code re-use at one time... about the
only published Algorithms many of us trusted were those published in
Knuth! And even then, we had to rewrite the actual code in whatever
context we were operating in, and were generally proud to do it.
But we couldn't help noodling on the algorithms, trying to think of
a new, more elegant, more general, or more efficient way of solving
the problem at hand.
Often, by the time one has worked through an algorithm forward to
backward, backward to forward, one might as well have designed it.
The existing algorithm provides a few important things, however:
Existence proof. We *know* there is at least one algorithm that
achieves the desired result.
Hints. Even if we don't understand an algorithm on first blush, we
usually get a sense of it's arc.
Reference. When we think we've got ours right, we can go back and
test it against the original. In fact, we probably now understand
the original as well as our own and if we have any humility may
throw *ours* away and use the one made available to us in the first
place
For proceduralists, C's concise method of creating complex objects
(data structures and pointers to them) made it possible to build
good/interesting/understandable libraries from tried and true
algorithms. With the introduction of ObjC/C++/Java and a huge new
influx of programmers (the Internet may not have *created* new
programmers, but it connected them to the rest of us in a way that
was unprecedented), the number of libraries went up dramatically.
With the Open Source movement, these accreted and evolved into some
pretty interesting, trusted and useful libraries. Today, only a
hardcore group like this crowd here are likely to rederive/redesign/
rewrite/rehash.
It is a dying art, which I am nostalgic about. It is one of the
entertainments I find on this list. I liken what happens here
(sometimes) to the WPA era when the very few remaining craftsmen in
many building arts were found and encouraged/supported to building
some last monuments to an old era of craftsmanship that no longer
exists.
Maybe huge systems built of handcut C (assembly?) code,
implementing custom algorithms are not as obviously beautiful or
elegant as some of the grand WPA era National Park resorts (Mt Hood,
Grand Canyon Lodge, Yosemite, ...) but there is a similarity in the
values and the processes.
I respect Nick and others here for wanting to apply the same
principles to the context of our various constructions as well. I
don't always (even try to) follow the arguments but I appreciate the
desire to (re)hash the hash, even if I don't always want to
participate in it.
- Steve
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
